Timothy Bovee: God Walks

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God Walks

By Timothy Bovee

Born 1946

I
Dedicated to my wife

God walks around the Earth checking things out and
loving every last thing in creation but sometimes
God gets careless and he steps on a volcano along the way.

The volcano under God's heavy tread erupts spewing forth
boulders and fire and lava laying waste to the countryside and
harming a lot of trees and deer and some people.

God looks down and says "Oops sorry I didn't know
where I was stepping it was just an accident
I was thinking of something else."

But no matter how good God's intentions are
trees still scream from the flames and
dead deer litter the mountain pastures and
people pack up and flee their homes
to escape the lava flow.

Should God be blamed for this?

II
Dedicated to my son

Now few people know that God is a gossip
taking those prayers and confessions and
heartfelt yearnings and passing them on
to his right-hand No. 1 assistant Lucifer.

"Luc, Look at that guy lotsa luck to
him he needs it" God says on a slow
Saturday afternoon. "He did bad he is
today an embarrassment to his family.
But I am God and I forgive him."

Lucifer goes to his Earth-bound No. 1
operative and says "Beez, Look at
that guy he does bad he's a
blot upon his tribe. But God forgives him."

Beezulbub rushes down to Earth and says
to his top op on the planet "Look at
that guy he does evil day by day
lowers the moral index of us all well
below the God-given quota."

And Slick Nick the top op puts it out on the
holy grapevine that one hapless soul was entirely
evil a foul scab on the human race
from dawn to dusk through time everlasting.

And one day that guy dies. Judged and beaten.
They thought he was an chronic sinner.
Beyond redemption.
Now deceased, crucified on a cross of barbed wire.

When God hears what happened he
shakes his head with a mighty sigh
and chastises himself for an eon or
two saying "When will I learn to keep a secret."

III
Undedicated

God rises from bed one morning pours a cup of
joe and gives a mighty stretch that cracks his
shoulder muscles so loud people below think it's
thunder on a bright sunny day.

And God looks down at his creation and his gaze
travels to and fro and hither and thither and
God sees little bombs exploding here and
bigger bombs exploding there and blood everywhere.

God sees knives gleam in the sun and assault
rifles flash in the night he sees cars
rushing through red lights sending crosswalkers
reeling as tax cheats go free he sees
refugees and detainees lacking lawyers
just when they need them the most.

Glancing right at a big-house ghetto where prices hold high
he hears a husband and wife locked in bitter legal combat at
twofifty an hour and a father disappointing his daughter one more time and a son
betraying his papa sowing the seeds of future bitterness.

God sees the rich and the poor and the happy and the
sad and the saints and the suicides and the fed and the
starving who dream of gruel and a Big Mac Attack.
God sees the lovers and the haters, and God cannot correlate the grid.

God hears a baby crying, and not the good kind of cry.
God weeps.

"Well" says God dabbing at his eyes with a hanky.
"In the beginning it really was Good."

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